On the following day, the family prepared for the journey. Nathan and Arielle finished packing in the morning, leaving Patrick to prepare the food and wagon. Therefore, the two eldest siblings left to gather more cash and jewelry while Patrick remained at home. "If you encounter any knights, hide your loots from them," Patrick cautioned the siblings before they left.

Patrick and Nathan looted fifteen houses the previous day. Even if a house had already been ransacked by other villagers, they would still examine it thoroughly. After all, Patrick processed the Appraisal skill. He showed Nathan how to use this skill to locate hidden cash or jewelry. Since both Nathan and Arielle awakened the Appraisal skill after the raid, Patrick allowed the two of them to go out and scavenge. As all the nearby houses had been thoroughly searched, the siblings had to venture further today.

"Arielle, let's go and see the knights." Nathan suggested, wanting to take a detour.

"We need money to survive. We should go loot and we better not let any knights notice us." answered Arielle. "That’s what Grandpa said." She added at the end.

Nathan thought about it, but he insisted. "Let’s go. This will be quick."

"Ok, actually, I wanted to go too. Hehe." Arielle chuckled, getting into her playful mood.

The children walked towards the center of the village, nearing the town hall. There, wounded villagers were being tended to by knights from the church. Certain knights were battlefield medics, while others were specialized in combat. The Count sent a team of knights from the medical division and a team from the cavalry division to the village.

The area surrounding the town hall was the marketplace of the village. In contrast to the residential area, the buildings here were packed closely together. The children grew up in this neighborhood and were very familiar with the back alleys and shortcuts. Without anyone noticing, they arrived at the inn where the knights were staying. They quietly slipped into the attic through a window of the adjacent building. The attic of the inn was mainly used for air circulation and storage; therefore, no one was using the space. The children called it their "secret base." In order for it to not bother his customers, the owner of the inn reinforced part of the attic and added soundproof materials so that it wouldn’t creak too badly even when children or mice moved around in it.

Nathan and Arielle peaked through one of the holes on the ceiling and they saw two knights coming into their room. They wore t-shirts and jeans with white lab coats. The children recognized them as knights from the eight-pointed star symbol on their lab coats; one of the left chest pocket and the other on their back.

"I am exhausted," said a knight in his twenties as he walked toward his bed and crashed there.

"Yeah, I get you," said another knight as he crashed on a sofa.

There was a moment of silence before the one on the bed said, "I heard that an Inquisition Knight died on this mission."

"What!? How could that be possible?" another knight asked.

"Perhaps the bandits had demons on their side."

"Ahh, no wonder so many people got hurt. Several more died on the west side from their injuries this morning. Some passed away during the night."

"Same here on the North side. The four year old girl, Sarah, passed away too. You were her surgeon, weren’t you?"

"Yea…"

The knight fell silent for a few moments, taking a swig of water.

"How in the world are we going to transport the injured to the next village? Those in critical conditions won't make it alive."

"No idea. It’s not our job anyway."

"What? Aren't we traveling with them tomorrow?"

"No, I heard the captain. We are going south, but these villagers are going west."

"I get it. But who's supposed to keep them safe, then? The bandits are still lurking around."

"Not sure, but orders are orders."

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"This is messed up."

The children heard some footsteps with metal clanging sounds. "Armored combat knights," the children thought in excitment. It was every children's dream to look at a shiny-armored knight up close. Nathan pointed toward the attic window, signaling Arielle to go to the other room; and the children started going back. Then, Arielle stopped on top of one of the rooms and pointed. Nathan looked through the previously empty room and saw three knights. These knights were in plate armors: one in whitish silver armor, one in brownish bronze armor and the last one in greenish copper armor. They sat separately on two sofas, with the silver-armored knight facing the other two.

"Well done, everyone. Our targets are all confirmed dead." said the silver-armored knight.

As soon as Nathan hear that voice, he was shocked as if he was stroke by lightning. He recognized that these knights were the group of metal armored bandits that slaughtered people in the courtyard and killed his mother and grandmother!

The silver-armored knight appeared to be in his forties, with grey military-style short hair, piercing Onyx eyes which darkness seemed to conceal countless souls, and lightly tanned brown skin.

The bronze-armored knight appeared to be in his twenties, with well-combed dark blue hair parted in the middle, piercing Emerald eyes that were focused on his next mission, and fair skin that hinted at covert assignments.

Lastly, the copper-armored knight appeared to be in her twenties, with long well-combed green hair cascading down her shoulders, piercing Onyx eyes that exuded diligence, and dark brown skin that hinted at her origins in the south.

Nathan’s hands began to sweat and his body trembled uncontrollably. He wasn’t sure whether this was anger or fear, or perhaps a mixture of both. When he lifted up his head, he saw Arielle looking down at the knights. "I must not let them notice we’re here." Nathan thought of protecting his sister.

"May Goddess Liliana watch over those who have made the ultimate sacrifice," the silver-armored knight said solemnly.

"What about the boy with black hair we saw that night?" The copper-armored female knight inquired.

"We have received no information regarding a black-haired boy or whether our targets had children." answered the silver-armored knight as he looked toward the bronze-armored knight.

"Ana was still young, so I am not certain if she had children." The bronze-armored knight answered.

Shocked by the mentioning of their mother, Ana, Arielle was about to speak, but Nathan covered her mouth. He gestured for her to remain silent by pointing his index finger to his lips, and she nodded in agreement.

"We cannot allow demons to leave any descendants behind. Furthermore, that boy countered Rudy's stab once. He could pose a significant threat in the future. We must eradicate any potential threats to the Kingdom. Can either of you identify the boy?" The silver-armored knight said gravely, his voice taking on a commanding tone.

"No, it was too dark to see his face clearly." said Melody. The other knight nodded in agreement.

"Melody, contact the bandits to attack the moving villagers the day after tomorrow. Here." He pointed on a map on the coffee table between the sofas.

"Got it, George." The copper-armored female knight, Melody, answered.

"Travis, make sure no one leaves the village. We need to send all villagers to the western route. So that we can kill all of the children with black or brown hair." George ordered.

"Ok, George. By the way, why are we killing so many children for just one boy? Our target is dead. Isn't that good enough?" Travis asked.

"Blame the report," George answered, his voice filled with dissatisfaction and impatience, "if it had intel about the demons' children, we wouldn’t have needed to do this." He did not seem to relish the idea either. "We must successfully complete this mission to obliterate all demons."

"Couldn't we, perhaps, we check the birth records in this village or this county?" Melody furrowed her brows and inquired, trying to find an alternative.

"How many Ana's do you think there are in this county? Personally, I know of more than ten." George said. "There must be thousands of them of child bearing age."

It seemed that they had no choice. However, the two younger knights, Travis and Melody, did not seem convinced.

"Do you know that demonic souls and abilities can be inherited through their bloodline?" George said, his tone softening. At this moment, he was not speaking as a commander, but as a teacher.

"No." Melody answered. George's answered piqued the young knights' curiosity.

"You two are probably too young to know this. Around the time when you were born, our Kingdom used to allow entry of people from different religions." George started explaining.

"However, evidences from the devastating war showed us that many spies were from just a few demonic bloodlines. So, the King declared a state of emergency and ordered all citizens with inherited skills to report to the Kingdom."

"Openly, they allowed these people to continue living in the Kingdom. However, behind the scenes, our Royal Covert Division of the Inquisition Knights was given the mission to eliminate demonic bloodlines."

"The war soon turned in favor of the Kingdom after we began executing this mission. As a result, our division has continued this assignment until now."

"I can assure you that, without our actions, the war will happen again, affecting millions of people. Compared to that, the deaths of a few dozen children are but a small price to pay. Remember: This is a Holy War Against Demons; and we must prevail!" George said fervently, gazing intently at the two young knights.

"Do either of you have any other questions?" George said after a moment, back to his stern tone.

No one said anything for a few seconds. Melody was slightly trembling with fear, and even Travis seemed uneasy. Then, George said, "You are dismissed."

"Yes sir!" Travis and Melody answered, seemingly more focused than before.

The knights then started leaving the room. "Travis, why don’t you ask the inn owner to take care of the rats in the attic? I just took care of two this morning and there were more when we were meeting." George said as he left the room.